February 18, 2012

Eric Bolling (Fox Business Channel's Follow the Money) test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors.

For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.

Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9 gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles. It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery hold 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery.

The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity.

I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh.

16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery.

$18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery.

Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine only that gets 32 mpg.

$3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.

(Note 32miles at $0.75 per mile equates to $23.68/gal. You can be assured the suppliers of gasoline can calculate this too. I can guess where the price-per-gal of gas is going as more of these battery cars are forced upon us by “regulation” via EPA, et al.)

The gasoline powered car initially cost about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000.

So Obama wants us to pay 3 times as much for a car that costs more than 7 times as much to run and takes 3 times as long to drive across country.

REALLY?

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." ~Plato

February 17, 2012

My good high-school friend, Lieutenant John "Cappy" Robertson -- a platoon leader in Viet Nam who humped into the bush a lot -- sends this to me:

This is what the Navy Seal team looked like when they went in to get Bin Laden. A couple of things to notice: 50 caliber sniper on the right. Knee, knuckle and forearm protection. Various plastic/wire ties. Absolute identity denial to protect their families. Free choice of footwear. Fourth from the right has three artillery simulators and CS gas grenades on his belly. He's the 'shock and awe' guy. This is a group photo of Seal Team Six; can you imagine the look on Bin Laden's face when these guys came through the door.

[I'm thinking hash marks in his u-trow. - ed]

John goes on:

But let's be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American sailor, who Obama, just a few weeks before, was debating on whether or not to PAY, killed Bin Laden! In fact, if you remember a little less than two years ago, his administration actually charged and attempted to court-martial three Navy Seals from Seal Team Six, when a terrorist suspect they captured, complained they had punched him during the take-down and bloodied his nose. Obama’s administration further commented how brutal they were. The left were calling them Nazi's and Baby Killers. Now all of a sudden, the very brave men they vilified are now heroes when they make his administration look good in the eyes of the public. Obama just happened to be the one in office when the CIA finally found the bastard and our sailors took him out.

Essentially, Obama only gave an answer, Yes or No, to him being taken out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!!

And John adds this interesting historical footnote:

OBAMA'S OWN WORDS TRAP HIM:

2008: "Navy Seal Team 6 is Cheney's private assassination team."
2011: "I put together Seal Team 6 to take out Bin Laden."

"2008: "Bin Laden is innocent until proven guilty, and must be captured alive and given a fair trial.
"2011: "I authorized Seal Team 6 to kill Bin Laden."

2008: " Guantanamo is entirely unnecessary, and the detainees should not be interrogated."
2011: "Vital intelligence was obtained from Guantanamo detainees that led to our locating Bin Laden."

"Those who have had freedom and lost it will never see it again!"

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the outcome."

There is a gentleman who lives in a large U. S. city South of me here in California. He keeps assailing me with notices of his incessant efforts to get Barack Obama impeached on the grounds of citizenship.

Yes, he is a birther and, yes, that ship has sailed.

I wearied of these missives and attempted to "unsibscribe" from his e-mails to no avail. So I had RoadRunner automatically consign them to the trash bin where they will be eventually be flushed. One day, I went to the trash bin, and, while I was pawing through the SEXY TEENAGE CHEERLEADERS WILL SELL YOU VIAGRA and the SEXY TEENAGE KENYAN CHEERLEADER MINISTERS OF FINANCE notes, I found one of his and thought I'd strike up a conversation with this guy just to see if he had any depth; was not that one-dimensional. It took a couple of times to get a response but I thought I'd post the conversation with this guy for your edification/amusement.

Now, to be perfectly fair, he is a perfectly nice person. I met him once at a Tea Party demonstration against Bags Pelosi and -- although a little rough around the edges and evincing the mannerisms of a guy who runs a little lean -- he was somewhat enjoyable to speak with. Also, this resurrected e-mail conversation does NOT seek to point out how stupid he is and how brilliant I am. It's just one of those little slices of life we all get as we wait for a bus, sit in the doctor's office, stand at a urinal, etc.

Some of you may agree with him and some of you may agree with me, but that's what makes a horse race.

The personal stuff is redacted. It starts out innocently enough:

From: The War Planner
To: The Other Person
Sent: Sat, February 11, 2012 8:47:52 PM
Subject: Re: Judge Malihi is an Iranian Muslim??

I repeat my question I asked in response to your previous e-mail:

It's November 6th and you have two choices for president, Mitt Romney or Barack Obama.

Who will you vote for and why?

Regards,

The War Planner
California

Innocent enough? Here's his response:

---- The Other Guy wrote:
I'm not voting for either one of those bastards, sorry. Hope that helps.

The Other Guy

Still pretty innocent. I guess my response below was a little heavy handed:

From: The War Planner
To: The Other Person
Sent:Wed, February 15, 2012 9:42:39 AM
Subject: Re: Judge Malihi is an Iranian Muslim??

It does.

Please remove me from your mailing list and I want to thank you for being one of
the a**holes who will be saddling us with Obama for four more years. At present,
you are no better than the mindless mouth-breathing independents who brought us
your Beloved Obama in the first place. Hope you enjoy ObamaCare and the two
bright shiny new commie SCOTUS justices we will be getting.

The War Planner
California

Hey, I guess I was spoiling for a fight. Here's his response:

---- The Other Guy wrote:
Go tell someone else how to vote, commie, who gives a shit what you think.

The Other Guy

It's on!

Well, being in a playful mood and not now being nor never have been a member of the Communist Party, I let the other guy have it with both barrels:

..sorry if I offended you. It's just that the irony of someone like you who
despises Obama so much will probably be doing more to get him re-elected than
his most ardent fans. I loathe the bastard as much as you do and, under more
civil circumstances, we would probably have worked together to defeat him. But
you and your obdurate, intransigent, zero-tolerance conservatism along with the
others like you will assure four more years of this flamer and with it an
absolute certainty that ObamaCare will NOT be repealed.

Our egomaniacal Pantload POTUS will absolutely veto any attempt to scuttle his
legacy. Once that piece of legislation starts crapping dollars out to the
non-tax-paying grifters in our society, it becomes indelibly woven into our
fabric as an entitlement. Also, ANYTHING that our
possibly-Republican-controlled Congress puts on his desk will be vetoed as well.
Democrats will applaud him as the last bastion against the incredible Tea Party
assault of 2010/2012 and there will be NOTHING done to roll back the spending.
We will be in for another four years of debt-ceiling kabuki like we had last
Summer.

Finally, what I alluded to before will come to pass. He will appoint AT LEAST
two ultra-liberal justices to the SCOTUS.

The net effect will be to turn this pile of dog crap into a folk hero for the
libs -- a modern day FDR replete with minority affirmative action creds -- all
because narrow-minded gorts like yourself refuse to think strategically; you
prefer the all-out frontal assault instead of a flanking movement. Suggest you
read up on General George Pickett.

But I suppose all of this is way over your head and outside of your ken so let
me couch my response in verbiage more commensurate with your diminished
cognitive processes. Oh yeah, how about this:

F**K OFF, A**HOLE!

The War Planner
California

O.K., I ain't all that innocent and I did unload on the guy. I am heartily sorry for my tantrum. But I just wanted to let him know the consequences of his actions. I ain't sayin' that ya gotta vote for Romney (or Santorum), but don't tell me you hate Obama, think he's a closet Kenyan, and want to move heaven and Earth to rid this country of him..

February 14, 2012

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch & lovingly filled it with delicious seeds.

What a beauty of a bird feeder it was.

Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio above the table and next to the barbecue.

Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table..

..everywhere!

Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own good intentions and limited budget.

Other birds became unruly, boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and
squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn't even sit on my own back porch anymore.

So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.

Soon, the back yard was like it used to be -- quiet, serene -- and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now let's see.

Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to to be an automatic citizen.

Then the illegals came by the millions. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for all those FREE services. Now we have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor.

Our child's second grade class has fallen behind other schools because over half the class doesn't speak English.

Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box. I have to press “one” to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than 'Old Glory' are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and more freebies.

Just my opinion, but maybe it's time for the government to take down the bird feeder.

Carl asks that, if you agree, pass it on, if not, then just continue cleaning up the bird crap.

February 11, 2012

Like I said, it shows competence in making money. Using that yardstick, Bush Sr would have been far more competent than Reagan. Just because someone’s made a bunch of money doesn’t mean they’re presidential material. That’s the idiotic ‘bot sell job they turn to in desperation when they’ve run out of polls to push.
ddrintn on February 11, 2012 at 10:42 AM

It depends how they made their money. Mitt didn’t earn his as a corrupt currency manipulator, or, er, as a reality show star. You all have plenty to criticize him over, to refuse to even acknowledge his unparallelled skills as (and commendable work ethic) is just more BCS*. Men like Jack Welch and Thomas Sternberg and Bernie Marcus know w.t.h. they’re talking about when they lavish praise on Romney for his incomporable leadership and business skills. *Bitter Clinger Syndrome.

Soros has a lot more money, why don’t we get him?, oh wait, he’s already running the country.
neuquenguy on February 11, 2012 at 10:58 AM

See above^^^^

Rockefeller Romney supporters have a compulsion to play the class warfare card in self defense of corporatism, just as Obama supporters rely on playing the race card.
maverick muse on February 11, 2012 at 10:29 AM

BLAH BLAH BLAH. Seriously, do you have any idea how annoying it to hear people misuse words like “corporatism”? I’m beyond fed up with candidates whining that they can’t win because they don’t have enough money to fund their campaign (and their whiny supporters). Here’s a clue: Plan ahead, get your ducks in a row, and raise money before you run.

It is patently absurd to imagine that he wouldn’t. He has emphasized his commitment in every speech he gives and the plan he published when he began his campaign. There is no way in the freaking world that he would renege on that, even if he wanted to, and he doesn’t. If President Romney does not do all that a POTUS can do to repeal ObamaCare in full, he would promptly be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail. And yes, I’ll bring the feathers.
MJBrutus on February 11, 2012 at 10:36 AM

Exactly. They can’t handle the truth. It’s not coincidental that many of the people who make this preposterous argument are bitter Palinistas who will use any excuse to deride him, no matter how out of touch with reality. They hold a grudge against him because one Nicole Wallace, who worked for McCain, said mean things about Sarah and in their Tin Foil Hat world, that was Romney’s fault.

I am one of those who will not vote for Romney for any office and not feeling guilty because we have no clue how he would govern as he has flip flopped so much. His speech yesterday at CPAC was a lie because ten years ago he ran for MA Governor as a liberal so he has not lived the life of a conservative unless it was for votes.
PhiKapMom on February 11, 2012 at 10:43 AM

I’m going to Breitbart you (and anyone of your ilk) from now until Election Day:

“You want a unity speech; I’ll give you a unity speech. I don’t care who the candidate is and I haven’t since the beginning of this. I haven’t. Ask not what a candidate can do for you, ask what you can do for the candidate. And that’s what the Tea Party is. We are there to confront them on behalf of our candidate. I will march behind whoever our candidate is because if we don’t we lose. There are two paths: One is America, and the other one is Occupy. One is America, the other one is Occupy. I don’t care…
…Anyone who’s willing to stand next to me and fight the Progressive Left, I will be in that bunker, and if you’re not in that bunker because you’re not satisfied with this candidate, more than shame on you, you’re on the other side.”

February 7, 2012

Drudge had this really great picture of out First Tool up on his site today. I am saving it here so I can write a suitably vicious post about what a clueless dick this guy looks like. But -- really -- I know you think Romney is a lib and a big spender and stuff, but would you really, really like to have four more years of this dork?

..but, just in case, I am leaving some open space for anyone who wants to scribble in their own notes. Knock yourself out.

February 6, 2012

Not to give short shrift to Washington, Lincoln and the other great men who served this country nobly and capably, but here is a message from AFP reminding us that most of us were fortunate to have lived during the presidency of one of the truly great leaders:

February 4, 2012

..in addition to railing against the boobs we have in Washington and Sacramento (and other places of governance where these idiots assemble) AND in addition to amateur radio, I have yet another diversion that occupies my time and helps me offload the mountains of cash received from my place of employment: I like shooting.

Not only do I like shooting, I like shooting Mr Garand's wonderful contribution to our culture: The 30 caliber M-1.

Am I a Carlos Heathcock or Vasily Zaytsev? Hardly! The term "broad side of a barn" comes to mind. When people speak in hushed tones of my marksmanship prowess and the term "dinner-plate sized groups" comes up, they usually throw in "place setting for the Jolly Green Giant". But, what the hell? I am in my sixth decade on this earth and getting anything on paper and in the aiming black at 100 yards with iron sights is pretty near a miracle for me.

But I persevere.

In addition to that, though, I just welcome the opportunity to share history with a many who lived and fought in past generations -- most notably, WWII, the Korean War, and briefly -- ever so briefly -- the Viet Nam War.

My pride and joy is a Harrington & Richardson made, .30 caliber M-1, a veteran born sometime around 1955 as its 5571### serial number tells me. It's got a decent but darkened stock with a few dings and cartouches (stamps put on it by the various armorers who have refit and revitalized it). It's components are not completely H&R -- there's a couple of Springfield Armory parts indicating that it was issued to one soldier, used, then overhauled, and handed finally back out to another before it was called in and given over to the Civilian Marksmanship Program so that some of us could practice and stand at the ready should the Russians or Cubans invade..

In any event, I commend this owning a piece of military history to you.I wrote about this once before here and like to pass this along again.The CMP according to its Wikipedia entry:

The Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) is a U.S. government-chartered program that promotes firearms safety training and rifle practice for all qualified U.S. citizens with special emphasis on youth. Any U.S. citizen who is not legally prohibited from owning a firearm may purchase a military surplus rifle from the CMP, provided they are a member of a CMP affiliated club. The CMP operates through a network of affiliated shooting clubs and state associations that covers every state in the U.S. The clubs and associations offer firearms safety training and marksmanship courses as well as the opportunity for continued practice and competition.

Basically, they operate out of two locations: Camp Perry near Port Clinton, Ohio (CMP North) and Anniston, Alabama (CMP South). I have purchased two rifles from them, the aforementioned Harrington & Richardson and a repatriated Greek Springfield from approximately the same era. The latter was a weapon we loaned to the Greeks in the late 1950s like we did with other NATO countries like Denmark, etc. These were recently given back to us and sent to the CMP for refurbishing and reselling. In the case of mine, the barrel was shot out and the stock had a peace symbol carved into it. So, off it went to Dean's Gun Restoration in Tennessee where it was rebarrelled and had a nice new stock put on it. Below is a picture I cadged from Dean's Website of the type of work he does:

The upper picture is, of course, the before and the bottom is the after. I just have one caveat to add: my Greek before looked crappier than the one Dean shows and my Springfield after looks far better than what Dean shows on his site. Just sayin' that Dean is far too modest about his workmanship. But the math works out really, really well. The Greek repat was what they called a "rack grade" and cost me about $300. Dean did his magic and charged me somewhere around $600 (his prices, like everything, have gone up in 8 years) so the total piece cost me around $900 out the door.I got it back and benched it -- back when I could shoot -- and got a 4-inch group at 100 yards using Lake City M2 Ball ammunition.

At the time, the Springfield Armory was starting to sell their re-issue or anniversary edition or whatever-the-hell-they-called-it 2004 M-1s for around $1,200. These were roundly disparaged by the Garand crowd as being late-to-the-dance and not worthy of purists' attention. Something like cast receivers as opposed to the original M-1's milled receivers. Frankly, back in 2004, I would have taken the Greek repats and had them refurbished by Dean any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

The Springfield -- while technically mine -- has been "gifted" to my son, the good Lance Corporal, who CAN shoot the testicles off of a gnat at 300 yards. We're headed out the door one weekend coming up to "BZO" (re-zero) these veterans and then we'll see if we can do some serious damage to 12 x 12 pieces of paper afterwards.

Sadly, with the advent of The Pantload ascending to the throne in 2009, ammunition prices have shot (sorry) out of sight. I used to be able to get .30-06 from the CMP for about 25 cents per round. Now they sell their stuff for about $110 -- and that's the cheapest surplus military stuff going with about a 15% wastage factor. Works out to 55 cents a round. To curtail severe wallet cramps, I am starting to reload which should cut down the cost to about 35 cents per round, if I am lucky.

Anyway, I am prattling here.

If you would like to own a piece of history, I commend the CMP to you. If you are a decent, law-aboding citizen, you may join and partake of what they have to offer. See you at the range? Wolverines!

January 31, 2012

Here's The Pantload tap dancing his way through a question from a lady whose husband has been out of work as long as this stiff has been in office. (Coincidence? I think not!)

And here's a pretty funny set of comments that address the bravo sierra Sunny Jim is laying down:

Tell your wuss husband to get a blue collar job. I work in construction and there is a severe shortage of non-wuss men. If you can get the job done without causing headaches and whining you'll get hired quick and be burried in work.
Ed from Missouri and 67 more liked this

buddyjoke [Moderator] 18 hours ago in reply to YippitySkippity

There has got to be something out there.

He has created over 22 million jobs in 3 years.
Or is it 3 jobs in 22 years?
Or is it 3 jobs in 22 million years?
Or is it 22 jobs in 3 million years?

What the heck, but it is one of those statements.

My take on this? The stupid bastard still has not fixed those goddam whistling teeth.

Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice dumped documents related to Operation Fast and Furious on congressional officials late Friday night. Central to this document dump is a series of emails showing Holder was informed of slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder on the day it happened – December 15, 2010.

An email from one official, whose name has been redacted from the document, to now-former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke reads: “On December 14, 2010, a BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol operations 18 miles north of the international boundary when he encountered [redacted word] unidentified subjects. Shots were exchanged resulting in the agent being shot. At this time, the agent is being transported to an area where he can be air lifted to an emergency medical center.”

That email was sent at 2:31 a.m. on the day Terry was shot. One hour later, a follow-up email read: “Our agent has passed away.”

Burke forwarded those two emails to Holder’s then-deputy chief of staff Monty Wilkinson later that morning, adding that the incident was “not good” because it happened “18 miles w/in” the border.

Wilkinson responded to Burke shortly thereafter and said the incident was “tragic.” “I’ve alerted the AG [Holder], the Acting DAG, Lisa, etc.”

..hmmmmmm. Lessseeeee, 4-1/3 x 5 = 21-2/3 weeks. You do the math, but that sure appears like “a few” to them is just like 20,000 jobs is “not many”. Here is Don Wade and Roma-- two WLS Chicago talk show hosts -- in an interview with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) weho tries to justify The Pantload's recent veto of the Keystone Pipeline veto. Listen to this sniveling waste of skin try to tap dance around this as Don and Roma keep bringing up embarrassing facts like the fact that the pipleline was researched for three years, it was signed off by the state department, and that the 20,000 were the direct jobs with an additional 100,000 jobs.

Just in case you don;t remember who this worthless piece of dog vomit is, she's the one who got into it with a talk show host (I do not believe it was Don and Roma -- maybe someone else) back in September last year who maintained that you do NOT deserve to keep your money:

Robert B. Creamer, the husband﻿ of U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, was indicted today on federal charges of operating three check-kiting schemes that defrauded banks out of at least $2.3 million while he ran an Illinois public interest group.

Creamer, 56, of Evanston, was charged with 16 counts of bank fraud for allegedly swindling nine different financial institutions. He also was charged with 18 counts of tax fraud.